Harry rubbed his nose with the back of his hand as he lead Draco into his flat.

"Okay, ferret, what'll it be?"

"Excuse me?" Draco whirled around, irritated, to the source of Harry's voice, who he found leaning on the open door of his refrigerator. He stepped aside, pulling the door along with him, revealing a literal bar inside. Draco's stomach sunk at how familiar a scene it was. "Oh. Honestly, Potter, I don't care." He waved off his host rather rudely because he was angry with himself for giving in the way he realised Harry had expected him to.

"Touchy, touchy," Harry teased. He opened his freezer, removed a pale blue frosted bottle, and placed it on the counter. "All yours. Only the good stuff for someone as important as you." The bottle made a cracking sound on the counter and Draco noticed the cap had unscrewed itself and then tightened.

Draco ignored the jab at his status. "Without a wand, Potter, how do you manage to bewitch everything you own?" Harry replied only with a sneaky smile and a tap on his head before grabbing his own unique bottle. Draco stared at it in wonderment; he'd never seen an alcohol bottle shaped like a skull. Harry noticed his amazement, looked at the bottle, back at his guest, and switched their bottles.

"It's wonderfully fitting it's shaped like a skull," he drawled absentmindedly. "You drink yourself to death with the very symbol of it in your hand. Brilliant." This bottle, too, opened on its own and Draco got a whiff of the light scent of licorice. It smelled and tasted expensive. Harry plunked down a shot glass on the counter between them, filled one of his own, and then filled Draco's. They clinked glasses, to which Harry toasted:

"To bitter rivalries that can be temporarily forgotten with alcohol." Draco couldn't help but give a slight laugh.

"You're drinking with Harry goddamn Potter, Draco Malfoy. What is wrong with you?"

I'm assuming we both have to be hammered to stand each other, but he's just being too polite to say it.

They played a sort of drinking game where after every sentence they spoke, they took shots.

"There's something in that vodka, Malfoy," Harry admitted fifteen minutes later. Draco nearly choked on his half-swallowed shot, and Harry snickered. "It's just going to keep you from passing out. You won't puke, either, but I'm going to make a healthy assumption that a seasoned alcoholic like yourself doesn't vomit often. I want to see what you're really like awake, not asleep." A wave of uneasy relief allowed him to swallow the rest of his drink; after all, it could have been much worse, though he doubted Harry would try to poison him so soon in their… whatever it was they had.

"C'mon." Harry pushed away from the counter with his backside, pouring and taking shots as he walked towards his wide sofa. Upon sitting, he folded his legs underneath himself and gestured, using the bottle, for Draco to sit across from him. "I want to talk to you."

"We've been talking," Draco grumbled while shuffling towards his new seat. He hadn't drunk nearly enough to affect his motor skills, but he was terrified of making an ass of himself.

"Well now we talk more." The blond looked at the black-haired young man across from him before imbibing a large volume of his fancy skull vodka. Harry laughed at how obvious Draco was. "Don't act like you're scared to talk to me or anything."

"I'm not scared, Potter. I just prefer drowning my problems in your fine expensive liquor is all. Cigarette?" His hands shook faintly as went to pull his personal, uncrushed pack from his inside jacket pocket and flipped it open. Harry took one, stuck it between his lips, and then quickly snatched another one to put behind his ear. Draco hesitated for a split second at the all-too-familiar action before hastily flipping one out for himself and shoving the pack out of view. Next came his Zippo, which he first politely tossed to his host.

"So," began Harry as he lit his smoke. "Firstly, you're an alcoholic. You're incredibly bright so you acknowledge it." The frank nature of his comment took Draco aback, but he nodded solemnly. "Next, you don't sleep well, so you use alcohol for that reason too." Right again. "I'm guessing you're haunted by whatever you've seen, so it gives you nightmares."

God fucking damn you, Harry Potter.

"Yes…" Draco admitted unsurely. "And what gives you the right to say all this to me?"

"Because you just admitted I'm right."

I fucking hate you.

"Moving on. You showed up here rather flustered, though you tried, and almost succeeded, in hiding it. I guess you missed me, or I managed to get under your skin."

"You said you'd bother me, and you hadn't yet."

"So, you were looking forward to it?" The devilish smile grew madly across Harry's thin lips. Draco's silence brought a laugh from deep within Harry that he stifled by drinking straight from his bottle. He looked like he was about to continue picking Draco apart, who then interrupted him.

"My turn, " Draco began, hardly hesitating. "You're damaged." Harry sarcastically tipped his bottle at him before taking another swig, as if to say, "well, no shit." "You act like everything's so funny, but you can't forget anything, not a single thing. It burns through your soul like acid more and more every day and you drink in an attempt to stop it. You don't censor yourself anymore, not even minimally; you realised you were better off not hiding how you felt about anything. You hate yourself, and me, and," Draco paused only briefly, "I think you partially blame me, and plan on bringing me down with you." Harry's eyes grew dark.

"Still the brightest wizard of our age, I see." Draco could tell his miniature tirade had made something snap in Harry, because he scooted across the cushions and came within inches of Draco's nose. Draco attempted to pull his face back but Harry moved closer to erase the new gap. Harry's green eyes were wild and pierced through Draco's. "But you're oh so close to being completely right that it pains me to tell you you've made a mistake. See, I don't want to bring you down with me. I just don't want to die being utterly alone with my thoughts to torture me in my last moments. What I say and give to you is for you to deal with how you see fit. If you let it simmer and brew and slowly destroy you, you'll die with me; if you completely forget or disregard everything I tell you, you'll be better off. But I've judged you well, Draco Malfoy, and I'm positive that each and every snippet of my mind I share with you will cause you many sleepless nights." Without moving his face or averting his eyes, he took a drink and pushed Draco's own bottle towards him, who didn't bother hiding the fear and shock in his face. He drank heavily to settle his nerves but only succeeded in making them worse.

"I knew this would be interesting," sneered Harry as he returned to his original seat. "My turn again."

"Your father has disowned you; I can tell by the lost look in your eyes and how you, though you may not have even noticed it, shuddered when I said your last name. You try not to think about him and for the most part you've succeeded in not caring. But every now and again you look in the mirror, disgusted by your blond hair because it's so obviously his. Then, you think about your mother and how she secretly visits you when her husband is otherwise preoccupied." Draco's heart was sinking and sinking. He loathed Potter for how he seemed to know his life better than the one who actually lived it.

"And you sit there, all your alcohol and cigarettes hidden so as not to upset your mother because you know how much she hates it, and you're shaking, you're sweating, you're fidgeting. Even the six hours or so she spends visiting sparks withdrawal symptoms, and you do everything you can to keep her from noticing because you really, truly love your mother but you detest your father." On the last sentence Harry had leaned towards his target to emphasise his point. Draco pushed him back with his bottle in hand.

"I do believe I've touched a nerve?" Harry batted his eyelashes in mock innocence that was disturbingly not unlike Aunt Bella had always done to his father when they argued.

"You've touched a lot of fucking nerves, Potter," Draco spat after smothering his agitation in alcohol. Still, though, Draco stayed. "Are we just going to tell each other horrible things the other doesn't want to hear?"

"No. I just figured we'd get a head start on admitting shit we don't want to admit." Draco considered, sipping from the bottle at intervals in his thought process.

"I hate you, Potter. I really, truly hate you."

"The feeling is mutual, ferret, but I notice you're still here."

"I'm not leaving. I'm not a coward like my father. You're right. I can't stand him. I don't want to be anything like him, and I'm not. I tried, oh-ho, I bloody tried to be him. I'm not heartless and wicked like he is. If you want to know anything about me as a person without taking the time to know me, think of my mother. I'm so like her in many ways. And I know she saved your life." This made Harry fall silent and his face stoned. No doubt he was having a flashback from the night of the battle, after he had died. Once in the safety of their home, where they were finally able to speak freely, his mother had told him how she had saved Harry Potter's life, if only to save her son's. The young Malfoy owed his life and livelihood several times to the man seated at the other end of the sofa, but Draco never truly appreciated it until his mother told him what he had done to help her find him. Now Draco had a flashback from the fire and the feeling of being pulled onto the back of a broom. He'd hugged Harry's waist tightly, burying his face in his back and choking from the smoke that had entered his lungs. The heat and ash that rose around them burned his eyes, but as soon as he was out of the fire he was on the ground again; Harry had dumped them both off the broomstick and he and his friends were already running away. Draco never thanked Harry for what he'd done.

"I guess I should get to know you better," whispered Harry, obviously guilty about being so hateful. "Because I remembered when you saved my life at your manor. Your father would never have done that, but you and your mother would, and did. I apologise."

Did… he just have a mood swing?

"He's a nutter, Draco. What do you expect from someone who's seen all he has?"

I don't care if he's a nutter, arsehole. After the war, we're all nutters. He's got every right to be batshit insane if he wants to be.

Draco extended his hand, which Harry took and they shook.

"I accept your apology. And thank you, for saving my life. I never got to tell you."

"Who knew Draco Malfoy, the twitchy little bouncing ferret, could be a civil human being?"

"Not anyone who refused to give me a chance to prove that I am." At this sudden understanding, both men smiled as they clinked their bottles together. The same feeling he felt in the church that morning came over him again; for the first time since he arrived on Potter's doorstep that afternoon he felt at peace. For a fleeting moment he felt like he could actually find a friendship in Harry Potter, for which he never wanted to admit to anyone he'd always hoped.

"Less heavy chat, agreed?"

"Yes," Draco blurted a little too quickly. He covered by admitting he always hated how Harry beat him in Quidditch, every damn time.

"Eh, but you were a worthy opponent. You would just see red and let it get the best of you. I always waited to fume with rage until my feet were firmly on the ground… and the Snitch in my hand." Harry murmured the last part of his sentence to his lap, and a sly smile invited Draco's well-deserved kick to his shins.

"Hey, I thought we were going to be nice to each other now!" He rubbed his assaulted shins with the cold vodka bottle.

"We are, but being nice doesn't mean you get off the hook for being a cocky prat." Harry shrugged and put up his hands defensively. Harry rose and disappeared into the room from the day earlier, coming back a few minutes later, but Draco hardly noticed. He was laying on his stomach fiddling with the remote control to the television set.

"You know how to work it?" It was an innocent enough question. Draco rolled over onto his back and lifted only his head to stare judgmentally at Harry.

"Of course I know how. I fucking own one." He flipped back over and propped his elbows up to rest his chin while he flipped through the channels. The skull shaped bottle refilled itself at his side, but he didn't notice. "I'm going to let you in on a little pastime of mine, Potter. I play drinking games with myself to corny sitcoms. Care to join?"

Alcohol had never made Draco belligerent or idiotic. Besides killer hangovers and the obvious decimation his liver, alcohol did wonderful things for him. It made his tongue loose, but not to the point of over sharing and making people uncomfortable. It made him pleasant to be around because he couldn't help but smile and giggle. In a lot of ways, it exposed his inner child that he worked so hard to repress. Harry had made his way to sit beside the lanky man sprawled on his carpet, rocking back and forth on his hipbones to the annoying intro jingle of the sitcom. The liquor had flushed his cheeks and gave him a permanent goofy smile, which consequently made him look like an elongated child dressed in far too expensive clothing.

"Okay, rules first. Whenever they play a laugh track, drink. Whenever a commercial starts, drink. When the show starts again, drink. And, God forbid, if they play a laugh track in a commercial, you have to drink a third of your bottle. But that never happens; I just made that up right now."

"Challenge accepted." They began to drink.

And they drank. A lot. Whatever elixir Harry had mixed into Draco's vodka was, he considered, a miracle, and he made a very drunken note to himself that he needed to ask what it was when they were sober enough to discuss it.

"I… I think y'beat me, ferret," Harry slurred. They were lying on their backs in the middle the living room, staring at his ceiling. Draco heard Harry's bottle roll across the tile floor.

"Nah. Ess a tie. 'M' quittin'." Draco gently pushed his bottle away from him; it was too interesting of a design to risk breaking it. "Y'know, wur lucky wur wizards. It takes s'a lot to kill us. If… if we were Muggles we'd be dead righ-bout-now."

"No fuckin' kiddin'… we err suh-lucky." Harry's last two words ran together as his hands fumbled to accentuate his sentence. Their heads rolled to the side so they came face to face. They looked at each other for a moment before succumbing to a fit of giggles, each rolling and curling up in a ball to stifle their laughter. Still shaking with laughter, Draco began to edge himself towards the nearest chair. Finally within arms' reach, he mustered all his strength to pull himself up, even using his face to help push his head off the floor. It had been a while since he'd been that drunk, and was happy during it. Potter was still clutching his sides laughing. The flush had risen in his face as well, and the years of grief and struggle seemed to have disappeared. Draco watched him, studying his face. It wasn't until then, when the pain wasn't as noticeable, that he realised just how aged Harry had been because of his battles.

In that moment, they weren't men with responsibilities, who had seen war and murder and sorrow. They were teenagers, genuinely enjoying each other's company. Draco wondered if, had he not been a shithead in his youth, he and Harry would have been friends and done this when they were actually teenagers, stowing away in an empty classroom in Hogwarts to get wasted and make fun of each other.

"'Ow'd you get up dere?" Suddenly, Draco was yanked back down on the ground beside Harry. "Watchit. Y'could get a bruise, y'little peach." Harry scrunched as much of his face as possible and clumsily pinched Draco's cheek. Draco snickered and, equally as clumsily, attempted to swat Harry's hand away but managed to smack the tip of his companion's nose. Harry froze, stunned and staring at his own nose, and then broke out into giggles again, which grew into a roar of laughter that set Draco's own into motion again. Through his deafening whoops he reminded Harry how much he hated him, who returned the sentiment and gave him a light, playful punch in the jaw.

The sun was setting outside, but neither man cared. The rest of the evening was spent rolling on the floor acting like children, and both of them preferred it that way. By the amount of alcohol both had consumed Draco deduced that neither would remember in the morning much of what had happened on the floor, how they teased each other and snickered at nothing until tears flowed down their cheeks and he knew that more than anything he wanted this to happen again and again because it was the happiest he'd been in probably his whole life. He just hoped Harry felt the same about their new found bond, conceived through alcohol, but when he looked over at the boy soldier lying next to him on the rug, pushing his palms into his eye sockets to stifle the tears brought on by unbridled howls of hilarity, all doubts crumbled to dust. Harry Potter, at least for a few hours, was happy, and Draco had helped get him there. It was the first step he had taken in keeping his promise to himself, and he had wholly succeeded.